Practical Advice for Successful Partnering between Innovator Drug Delivery Companies and Big Pharma

Deborah Bitterfield has over 10 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and currently serves as the President and CEO of Lindy Biosciences, Inc., which she founded in 2017. Dr Bitterfield’s experience reflects positions across a broad range of strategic and operational disciplines including biotherapeutics and medical devices. Prior to launching Lindy Biosciences, Dr Bitterfield joined Southeast TechInventures, an innovation lab that partners with university inventors to further develop promising university technologies, where she led their scientific operations and project management. She holds a PhD in Materials Science from Duke University with a focus in biomaterials.

Michael Cucolo is an Executive Director of Business Development at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS). Mr Cucolo has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 25 years. In his current role, he leads the Research and Enabling Technologies Transactions Group, identifying and bringing novel technologies and platforms into BMS. He works cross functionally through-out the organization to find gaps and needs requiring external innovation. His responsibilities include; the identification, evaluation and licensing of  technologies and intellectual property in support of pharmaceutical discovery, drug delivery/development and manufacturing for small and large molecules.Mr Cucolo has negotiated and executed over 150 diverse transactions with third parties. These include material transfers, evaluations, in-licensing/out-licensing of technology platforms and intellectual property as well as collaborations and consortiums with industry, biotech and academic partners.Prior to moving into a business development role he worked on the formulation development and stabilization of new drug products transitioning to Phase 1 clinical studies. During his career as a scientific investigator, he carried out extensive drug development work on both small molecules and biologics for branded and generic pharmaceuticals. He is the inventor on two drug formulation patents and contributed to a number of currently marketed pharmaceuticals.

For the past 30 years, Vincent Ling, PhD, led successful groups in diverse biotechnology fields including cell devices, protein engineering, biosimilars, stem cell differentiation, checkpoint inhibitors and molecular evolution of antibody scaffolds. He has held leadership positions in large, mid-sized and start-up environments, creating practical biotherapeutics. His current interests lie in novel drug delivery technologies, which includes drug particles, energy guidance and biomaterial scaffolds. At Takeda, Dr Ling currently serves as Senior Director within Search and Evaluation, Business Development, after directorship roles in external innovation and pharmaceutical sciences. Prior to Takeda, Dr Ling was Head of Biological Sciences developing cell therapies for wet AMD at Neurotech. He has held positions including Vice President at Dragonfly Sciences, managing all scientific operations and marketing functions, Director of Molecular Genetics at Adnexus (Compound Therapeutics), and other scientific roles in Discovery Research at Genetics Institute and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

John A. Merhige is Chief Commercial Officer at Credence MedSystems. Previously, Mr Merhige was Vice President, Market Development at Sanofi BioSurgery. He joined Sanofi upon its acquisition of Pluromed, Inc, where Mr Merhige was the third employee and member of the executive management team. Pluromed developed and commercialized rapid transition polymers for use in cardiovascular and other surgical procedures. Previously, Mr Merhige founded Prelude Devices to identify early stage medical device ventures and gained general management and commercial leadership experience at Ford and Avery Dennison. Mr Merhige graduated from Dartmouth College with a mechanical engineering degree and returned to Dartmouth for a Masters in Engineering Management from the Thayer School of Engineering and the Tuck School of Business. Mr Merhige is a member of MassMEDIC, MassBio and has served on the board of directors of the MedDev Group (MDG).

Sarah Tao, PhD, is the Senior Director of External Innovation for Biologics within Sanofi Partnering since July 2021.  In this role, she is responsible for identifying and evaluating external technologies that align with Sanofi’s strategy for Biologics-based therapies. Dr Tao joined Sanofi in 2017 with successive roles as Technology Lead for Biologics Research, and then Global External Technology and Innovation Lead for Large Molecules Research. Prior to Sanofi, Dr Tao was a Senior Manager of New Technologies at  CooperVision leading external research programs on advanced ophthalmic devices; and was also a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the MEMS Design Group at Draper Laboratory leading programs in inner ear and ocular drug delivery. She received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University with a research focus on MEMS-based devices for oral drug delivery.  Dr Tao has received numerous accolades for her contributions to the field of drug delivery, including the Controlled Release Society Eurand Grand Prize.